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Friday, November 18

Royal Melbourne Stars in Presidents Cup

THE SCORE SHOWS THE AMERICANS are ahead of the Internationals 7-5 after two days of the Presidents Cup, but the real winner so far is Royal Melbourne Golf Club, as ESPN.com’s Bob Harig reported.

Designed by Alister MacKenzie, the man who teamed with Bobby Jones to create Augusta National and who also designed Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne has stood the test of time since it opened in 1931. On Friday the famed layout was even more treacherous due to winds that gusted up to 40 m.p.h.

“It’s carnage on a golf course like this today,” said Adam Scott of the International team. “Thank goodness it’s match play and we weren’t actually counting our strokes. It’s a great golf course when it can play fairly in conditions like this.”

I watched a portion of the Golf Channel telecast on Thursday night. Those Royal Melbourne greens looked impossible to me. I find it hard to believe that Matt Kuchar was able to make five birdies on his own ball. Kuchar teamed with Steve Stricker to beat Robert Allenby and Y.E. Yang 4 and 3.

Tiger Woods, this time partnering with Dustin Johnson, was on the losing end for the second straight day. Jason Day and Aaron Baddeley beat the Americans 1 up.

Play on Saturday will include five foursomes matches in the morning and five fourball matches in the afternoon. Sitting out the morning matches are Stricker and Nick Watney of the U.S. team and Yang and K.T. Kim of the International team. All four are required to play during the afternoon session.

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